A probing, satiric, insightful, cynical, humorous, whimsical, Pythonesque examination of politics and those who practice politics along with refreshing perspectives on the events, times, programs, legislation, rulings and pronouncements of the ruling Cabal of self-interested self serving promoters who would sacrifice everything--the land, nature, our wonderful pristine environments for personal gain and narrow interests...

Saturday, June 02, 2007

The Death of Education

Profits Over Minds...

Got to hand it to those Bush boys they don’t leave a stone unturned.When you have a program promoted by the president that quizzes school students on their knowledge, it only stands to reason that another Bush boy would find a profit in supplying the answers students need.

They do it through a system called COWs developed by an associate of Neal Bush who markets this program through the public schools system.

It just stands to reason that somebody would come along with a computerized dumbed-down version of answers so that students will pass their tests. The more enduring question: Will they learn anything using COWs?

When specific facts that students need to know to pass their No Child Left Behind exams are given to them in a visual format, will the child be challenged sufficiently to learn anything beyond those facts?

If this question was posed to real teachers, you might hear that all the money and effort in American education is going to prepare for the test; it is not going for education purposes.

So while students increasingly seem to be learning less, they are improving in their test scores.

Will COW, therefore, survive as the easy way to get through each class. Will testing proficiency replace knowledge as the Holy Grail. Look around you. It already has.Until educators are able to persuade Congress otherwise, we shall persist in this empty exercise that proves nothing about how capable our children are.

It’s time to get real and push the idea of education, per se, over testing proficiency.

And isn’t that what the schools are supposed to be about in the first place.

Dumbing down in today’s competitive world where other children take school for more hours than American children and then do homework or take tutoring way into the night, is no way for America to prepare its youth to excel into the future.

We need some straight talk here with fewer COWs and more of something teachers are trained to do, teach.

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About Me

A few things that drive me: Fair Play and representation of the smaller guy who tends to get beat up by the system.
In representing the small guy's interest in good, clean government, government that is fair to the governed--the way the Founding Fathers saw it, I like to give it back to the bullies in spades.
the guys who always complain about "our Values" those self professed arbiters of what's right and what's wrong; those guys who wave the flag and never served because they were too busy! Those Crusaders who are ready for Armegeddon!...and don't care who they sacrifice on the way!...And when I'm doing this, I also like to introduce a little levity, tweak their noses, yank their chains, inject some sarcasm and, hopefully, a little wit that flies over their heads. If you came around for the truth, good for you. If you came around the truth and the ability to give it back to the Right Wing lunatics, so much the better. With a media that's copped out, a Congress that is compliant, a government that is never mindful of those it governs, it is time for people like you and me to take back our country!